


Leviathan

by Darling_Jack



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Animal Attack, Blood Loss, Fever, Hurt, Injury, Whump, country pursuits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27250084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darling_Jack/pseuds/Darling_Jack
Summary: Dutch sent him into the swamp.Dutch pulled him out of the swamp.The Bullgator wasn't happy about either decision.[Takes place during Country Pursuits]
Comments: 24
Kudos: 89





	1. A Man.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Emmithar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmithar/gifts).



God, Hosea was going to have a _conniption_ when he heard about this. 

_If_ he heard about this. 

Arthur’s lungs felt sticky and thick, full of the soupy bayou air. They heaved and burned nevertheless, no doubt fit to burst with mosquitos and mayflies. Jules hung limp over his shoulder, the sharp tang of copper mingling with the overwhelming stench of rotten water. Arthur sifted the man, cringing at the feeling of fresh blood soaked thoroughly into his shirt.

There was hardly time for it though; he pushed and churned through the miry sludge, as quick as he could drive himself forwards. With each step, his feet sank further into the clayey muck settled beneath the swamp, desperate for purchase and structure.

“I got you,” he muttered, over the thundering of his heart in his throat, hoping his words might reach the incoherent man, though his fevered muttering suggested otherwise. 

“Hurry up, Arthur!” Dutch hollered, as though Arthur weren’t already hurrying, “Just— Just don’t look behind you!”

Panic squeezed that muculent air from his chest all at once; the oppressive temperature of Lemoyne broke away and his blood ran ice cold. 

Arthur didn’t _have_ to look behind him.

He could tell by Jules’s terrified whimpers and the low, throaty rumble at his heels that he should _definitely not turn around_.

Nor should he stop, no matter how his body protested. He pressed onwards, thighs burning and muscles screaming.

“Fire off a couple of warning shots,” he bit, hoping the fear hadn’t yet seeped into his throat, “Just to pretend you care!”

And almost as if he had to be reminded that he was _supposed_ to care, Dutch began firing, each shot sinking into the swamp mere feet from Arthur. Arthur grit his teeth tight, pulse thrumming louder than Dutch’s wild shooting. 

Were it not for the raw, unceasing adrenaline that had dumped into his gut, Arthur might have felt his bones tremble and whine; might have given thought to the near blinding terror that gnawed at his brain as his body slowly exhausted. 

“I got you covered!” Dutch hissed, sounding either panicked or offended by the suggestion, but Arthur didn’t exactly have time to decide which. All the while, Thomas urged them onwards, quick, quicker, quicker still. 

Beyond that, Arthur heard nothing but the buzz of fear, drowning out the world around him. _Get to the damn boat_ , he assured himself, _just to the boat._ Black dots played at the edge of his vision. Each step felt fit to be his last, each trudging footfall sure to catch on a sunken branch or the jaws of some lurking creature, each stumble bound to send the both of them sinking into the depths of the bayou. 

“Here, give me the boy!” Dutch commanded, arms outstretched to pull Jules off of Arthur’s shoulder, “Put him here, come on!”

Breathless, trembling, Arthur braced himself against the skiff, hefting Jules as high as his quivering arms could manage. Dutch hastily pulled the boy into the boat, nearly falling backwards under his dead weight. 

Eons stretched between them before Dutch returned to pull Arthur over the side.

Arthur swallowed back against the bile burning his throat. 

The pair locked eyes for a moment, brief, fleeting, just before Arthur was pulled under. 

Dutch caught the brief, horrifying flash of panic that swept over Arthur’s face in that singular moment before he vanished. 

He didn’t even manage more than a choked-off yelp. 

Dutch lunged after him, hoping, praying to grab the man’s arm, sleeve, hand, something, anything to keep him from being consumed by the inky depths .

But he was too slow, and Arthur was gone.

Time ground to a halt. 

Arthur was gone. 

Arthur was—

He—

In the next moment, Dutch was halfway over the side of their small vessel, with Thomas holding him back, a hand tight around his waist.

“You go in there now, it’ll grab you too!”

Dutch didn’t even need to growl a reply, his panicked glower more than enough to loosen Thomas’s hold.

“Arthur!” he hollered into the stifling darkness of the swamp, terror edging into his voice, “Arthur!”

His boy, his son, his _friend_ , lost beneath the murky sludge, trapped in the jaws of some prehistoric behemoth, and Dutch couldn’t keep his own breath under control for two goddamned seconds. His chest heaved and thundered. Submerged branches and debris bit and tore at Dutch’s skin, but he couldn’t have cared less. 

“Arthur!” he roared again, trudging through the muck.

A flash; barely there, out of the corner of his eye, caught in the glow of the lantern. The gleam of a pale white hide, but more than that the glint of firelight off of the blade of Arthur’s hunting knife, buried in the beast’s skin as deep as it could go. Dutch drew and fired in one swift motion, emptying one of his Schofields into the monster, clustering his shots at the already seeping wound.

One.

Two.

Three. 

It barely broke it’s stride.

Four.

The bullgator flinched, writhing away from the nuisance.

Five.

Six.

Blood. 

With an annoyed hiss, and a flick of it’s hefty tail, the gator slunk off, disappearing back beneath the thick waters of the swamp. 

And despite the sticky heat that burned through the swamp, Dutch’s blood ran ice cold. 

“Arthur!” he cried, struck with abject horror as in the gator’s place was a pallid glimpse of Arthur’s bare, torn skin, stark and ghastly in the moonlight. 

His boy. Face down, unmoving, still as death as he sat on the surface of the swamp. Dutch surged forwards, stumbling across the uneven muck beneath his feet, each step too slow, each inch closer still a foot too far.

“Arthur—“ finally, finally he put hands on his boy, hauling him upright with strength he hadn’t known in decades. 

Dutch swiveled his head, searching in the darkness for any of the small islands that peppered the swamp so liberally. The nearest, mere yards. One arm wrapped tight around Arthur’s ribs; the other clutched his second sidearm.

His ears buzzed unpleasantly, even as he desperately dragged the both of their sopping bodies onto the soft, spongy land. Immediately, his hands were on Arthur, turning him onto his back, touching his face checking for a sign— any sign— that the boy was alive. 

Shaky, unsure, Dutch found his pulse; thready, weak, but fighting.

Perhaps harder than necessary, he slapped Arthur across the face, hoping to rouse the man, but to no avail. 

A stream of rancid water poured from Arthur’s mouth. 

Dutch’s heart dropped to his stomach.

Arthur wasn’t breathing.

Arthur wasn’t breathing.

Arthur wasn’t—

“No, no, no,” he muttered, hysterical, “C’mon you beautiful boy, come on…”

Hosea had taught him this years ago, back when John was young and prone to getting a little too close to fast-moving rivers and deceptively deep lakes. He’d never had to use it though; Hosea had always been there. Or, failing that, Arthur.

Dutch flipped Arthur onto his side, smacking him hard between the shoulder blades, one arm still wrapped across his stomach. 

Again.

And again.

Harder each time, until Dutch was certain he would break something, either in his hand or Arthur’s back; until Arthur writhed, and sputtered, and coughed, and the blessed sound of lungfuls of water splashing against the earth broke through the buzzing in Dutch’s ears.

Weak coughs followed as Arthur dumped the contents of his stomach into the muck. Dutch rubbed small circles into his back, taking note of the holes torn into Arthur’s shirt.

Tremors ran through his body; Dutch could feel Arthur’s quivering through his hands. 

“‘tch,” Arthur croaked, “— tch…”

“I’m here, my boy, I’m so— I’m sorry, I’ve got you, you’re all right— Are you hurt?“

Even in the overwhelming darkness of the swamp, Dutch could just barely make out the sallow pallor in Arthur’s skin.

“W’nna…” Arthur groaned, his voice weak and stifled by coughs, “H’me…”

Home.

The word resonated in Dutch’s chest. Home. Help. Hosea could handle this. Of that, Dutch was certain. 

Thomas called out as the dinghy drew near, already leaned over the side to heft Arthur into the small vessel. 

“Yes, yes, son. Let’s get you home.” He hollered, “Help me with him— I’ve got you, Arthur, you just— you stay awake.“

Arthur hummed, his breath coming noisily and weak, as his body slowly failed him. He collapsed against Dutch’s chest, but his half-lidded eyes stubbornly stayed open.

Arthur’s pitiful whine of pain damn near shattered Dutch’s heart as Thomas hauled him aboard. Dutch followed soon after, holding his boy upright against himself, muttering words of comfort into his hair. Arthur’s head lolled back against Dutch’s shoulder.

In the lantern light, Arthur’s poor state was all the more apparent. He was matted with mud and slime; surely blood, too, though the dark crimson stains were indistinguishable in the low, flickering light. 

“Your man ain’t looking too good,” Thomas blurted out with an audible grimace as he rowed them to shore.

Dutch sneered, shooting a venomous glare at the man, weighed upon by exhaustion and ebbing fear. 

“You mind your boy, I’ll mind mine.”

“Just saying… That thing had him good. He, uh—Might be kinder if—“

“He’ll be fine,” Dutch spat, tightening his grip on Arthur slightly, as though Thomas, too, might try to pull him away.

“‘M fine,” Arthur murmured, perhaps more out of reflex than response.

By the time they reached the shore again, Thomas had summoned a small gaggle of folk from the nearby buildings, handing off Jules to the waiting crowd.

He reached for Arthur, but Dutch had already hauled the barely-conscious man to his feet.

“Thank you kindly for the offer, but my boy will be well taken care of at home.”

He whistled sharply, summoning their horses from where they’d been nibbling at the grass. The Count and Breah came dutifully at his call, neither horse particularly pleased to be spending quite so long in the swamps. 

Almost immediately, Arthur, who had been worryingly still and pliable, pushed away from Dutch, running his hands over Breah’s hide.

“‘m okay,” he croaked, voice barely a whisper, broken again by a violent cough, “Jus gotta… go home.”

“Don’t be a fool, son, you can’t ride in your condition—“

“C-Count can’t carry us both,” Arthur hissed, gripping at an unseen wound on his chest, “Breah won’t let you take her.”

Dutch’s face pursed into a tight frown.

Arthur was right.

Breah was still a wild thing; sweet, so long as nobody tried to touch her. He certainly couldn’t imagine trying to ride her, not with Arthur in as poor of shape as he was in. And The Count was a bastard through and through; the extra, unfamiliar weight would surely set him off. 

So instead, Dutch pushed Arthur up onto his horse, and the pair rode as quickly as Arthur could stomach back to Shady Belle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first of my requested fics! Just in time for the end of Whumptober! 
> 
> Arthur gets chomped by a gator, and Dutch is an idiot. What more could you ask for? ♡ This one is dedicated to my dearest Em, who is far, far crueler than I could ever be. Hopefully this lives up to your standards! ♡
> 
> Expect chapter 2 sometime soon! See you all then, my darlings! ♡♡♡


	2. A Monster.

Hosea fumed. He boiled. He rolled the ground beneath his feet as he paced left, right, left again. He was stuck fast in his thoughts but, damn it, he couldn’t quite place what those thoughts were.

This was a bad idea. This whole plan for revenge was pointless. It was foolish. It was a stupid goddamned plan crafted by a man who was too far gone to realize how much of a goddamned idiot he was. But Dutch wanted revenge, so he’d get it. That’s just how it was. The man had always been full of bluster, keen to posture with no real understanding of weight behind his words. 

Revenge was a fools game. He’d said that a thousand times, and not once had Dutch listened. Not _once_ had he bothered to take Hosea’s advice to heart. When he got caught up like this there was nothing that would stop him. Angelo Bronte was a dangerous man, and someone was bound to get hurt. And typically, in Hosea’s experience, men like Angelo Bronte don’t just stop at _hurt_.

Neither do men like Dutch, he supposed. 

This was a stupid goddamned plan. The mere idea of it roiled in his gut. 

He almost— _almost_ — was too deep in his thoughts to startle at the sound of hoofbeats.

One set, too fast; far too fast for a casual return home.

He was embroiled with rage that he had stoked in Dutch’s absence, flaring only hotter, his ears buzzing, angry, furious, a thousand different words that thrummed through him with a viciousness unmatched. He had half a mind to pull the man down from The Count and bend his ear until the sun rose and he was blue in the face. 

That is, until until the murmurations of the camp erupted into shrill screams. Another plodding set of hoofbeats; slower this time. Less intentional. Folks pull Arthur from his horse; more brush past him. In the rush, his hat falls off. It lays in the dust, forgotten. Hosea would yell at him about that later. There were hands on him, pushing him back, away. He let them. Surely they, too, had grievances to air with the returned men.

Dutch stumbled over to him, looking just about every kind of wrong. To apologize, no doubt, for the plan going poorly; a plan he insisted on despite Hosea’s warnings. 

Dutch was shaking, trembling in his boots, his expression painted with something awful. He trembled, unable to remain still as he explained— always explaining, chattering on in ways the others tried to direct but simply couldn’t. He was listening, gesturing, panicking. Hosea couldn’t hear his words over the roar of the camp; he wasn’t sure he wanted to. 

He was covered, smattered, in blood. The kind of dark, sticky blood that follows death— never precludes it. The pallor in Dutch’s cheeks and the way he shook— why— and how— could he be walking and talking and breathing if he had so little blood in him and so much on him? Just as quickly, or maybe a while later, Dutch was gone again, barking orders in his wake. 

Then barked orders, desperate wails, screams for water, for help, for bandages, for whiskey, for a doctor.

Finally, a whisper, spreading across the camp like a cancer.

A whisper for him. An afterthought. 

Again whether a second or a year had passed, he could never be quite sure, but in that time he managed to awaken to Susan, wrapping her hands around his arm and pulling him along. His feet couldn’t— wouldn’t? Shouldn’t?— cooperate. Everything was numb— the painful kind of numb, where moving feels like the grinding of sand into your skin and your nerves pinch in all the wrong places. Somebody should be taking care of Dutch. Dutch was hurt, clearly he was hurt and that’s why he was covered in blood, which someone really should tend to. 

His ears rang— if Susan said anything to him, it was as lost as he was. His eyes jumped from one to the next, like stepping stones, like deer tracks, bright red and undisturbed.

“—down, just breathe!”

A sharp strike across the face. He hadn’t realized he wasn’t breathing until his chest burned and pulled, but he couldn’t quite manage more than a choked gasp and a strangled cough. 

“— needs you to be calm right now, keep it together—“

Dutch, of course. Dutch needs him to be calm. He was so panicked, just a second ago, or maybe an hour, but it could just as well have been yesterday. 

He was forced into a chair and handed a wet cloth to clean the blood off of his hands, but it wouldn’t do anything for the stains creeping up his sleeves. Hosea frowned. He was rather fond of this shirt, too. 

Someone screamed. Guttural. Raw. Broken. 

“— tthews! Are you alright?”

Susan’s voice. He blinked, unable to form a response.

“The doctor just left,” she explained, taking the rag out of his tight grasp, “if you— if you wanted to—“

And he did. However she might have conceived to finish that thought, he did. He wanted to.

She led him along by the hand. He was stopped, abruptly, by two more on his shoulders. Charles’s eyes bore into him with such an awful compassion and pity. He wanted to throw up.

Apparently, his expression conveyed as much. Whatever words Charles had said, Hosea only heard two:

“He’s alive.”

Hosea nearly screamed in relief, but the look on his face halted any release, “but—He... he might not be for long. It’s not good. He— the doctor did what he could but —it ain’t good. The doctor said if we waited any longer he would have… His temperatures spiked up and he just won’t— he can’t —“

Unable to bear another stifled thought, Hosea pushed in the door, halting at the awful sight before him.

Dutch’s room, their makeshift infirmary, was covered in blood. Bloodied towels, bloodied rags, bloodied clothes, strewn about. He swallowed, pushing back the urge to vomit at the overwhelming stench of copper and sickness. Susan entered just after Hosea, resting a hand on his shoulder as though that would make any of this any better. 

Dutch sat on a small stool, his head cradled in his palms. Tilly was quietly stitching a shallow cut on Dutch’s leg. When Hosea entered, his head shot up like that of a dog caught eating from the table, eyes wide and stuck with that vile, haunted look that was so often found on men returning from war. For a brief moment they shared that look.

Dutch, like a guilty child, slowly turned his attention to the bed, his mouth working around some kind of apology, or platitude, or something that would make any of this even a little better. Nothing would, though, so he said nothing. 

Hosea followed his gaze, the nausea and dread building in his stomach. His bottom lip tugged at his face, eyes burning with tears and chest tight with— with— something. Something foul. Something that was heavy, that hurt, that was too cold and too hot all at once. 

Arthur lay motionless. One could have easily mistaken him for dead were it not for the messy, labored breathing. Noisy, in all the ways Hosea hated. 

He was an absolute wreck of stained gauze, dark red in some places and darker yet in others. His lips were parted slightly, features thick with pain but the otherwise blissfully unaware of the hell unfolding around him. Arthur was a swollen, angry mess of stitches and oozing wounds. Stitches weren’t nearly enough to bridge the gaps in his flesh. 

The boy was completely unrecognizable, more stitch and bandage than flesh. They had told the doctor it was a hunting accident. A well-hidden gator got the drop on him. The beast had its teeth around him, the poor man trapped in the deadly grip of its maw. Hosea had no idea if that was true or not. They told him a similar story— Arthur rescuing a poor soul from the swamps and finding himself in peril, Dutch heroically leaping in to save him, but he wasn’t sure that was true either.

He’s told it was worse. That the doctor had done an amazing job, all things considered, and would be back in the morning to see if Arthur survived the night, but he doesn’t believe it. He doesn’t believe Arthur had ever looked worse— that _this_ was him put back together. That _this_ is the best anyone could have done. 

The nightmares he suffered for the rest of his life were quick to assure him that it had been so, so much worse. Those nightmares informed by the waking horrors he had been pulled away from, hidden from his memory but burned into his eyes.

Hosea gripped Arthur’s hand tight, ignoring the way it hung limp and clammy in his grasp.

“What…” he started, though he choked on the thoughts as they bubbled up, “What…”

“I didn’t know,” Dutch croaked, “I didn’t— he seemed fine, he was talking, he-he wanted to go home, he was okay, he— he— just passed out on the way back, and I didn’t— I… didn’t….“

Though he should have again been consumed by rage, he wasn’t. Too cold. Too distant. Too scared. 

“I shouldn't have made him go,” Dutch admitted, quieter.

A terse silence strung between them, unbreakable and sharp.

“You what?”

“I… Hosea, I swear, I had no idea—“ 

“Get out.”

“What?”

Hosea sprung to his feet, knocking his chair aside and sending a pitcher of water crashing to the floor. He lifted Dutch by his collar and shoved him out.

 _“Keep him the hell out of here,”_ Hosea barked to whoever happened to be nearby, “I don’t wanna see his fucking face until that boy is back on his feet.”

He settled back in next to Arthur’s bedside, watching the uneven and desperate rise and fall of his chest. 

Within days, Arthur would develop a bout of pneumonia that would have them scrambling for the doctor again. His wounds, despite Hosea’s constant attention and vigilance, would fester and inflame. Hosea was helpless to stifle the raging fever that had settled into Arthur’s skin, try as he might. 

Dutch, too, would fall victim to similar infection and fever, laid up in Arthur’s bed as Arthur laid in his. 

Dutch would recover within two weeks, left with a nasty scar on his thigh and the lasting memories of guilt-laden fever dreams.

Arthur wouldn’t. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, ambiguous endings. Nothin sweeter. 
> 
> Hope this scratched some kind of itch, Em! ♡♡♡♡


End file.
